The Camp Verde Sanitary District issued a surprise announcement at the end of a heated public hearing July 9: The tax levied on district homeowners will actually go down this year.

Instead of the worst-case scenario feared by many district residents, CVSD announced a fiscal year 2008-09 budget that covers all of the district’s spending, about $950,000 for FY2008-09, at a cost of $2.23 per $100 in assessed value, an $.08 reduction in the tax compared to FY2007-08.

The assessed value of a home, its “full cash value,” is normally less than its market value. Assessed value is the value of real property as determined by the Yavapai County Assessor each year.

Under the FY2008-09 budget, a district residence with assessed value of $200,000 will receive a property tax bill of $464 for sewer, about $16 less than last year.

A draft budget published by CVSD prior to the hearing suggested the CVSD tax rate for FY2008-09 could go as high as $6.09 per $100 in assessed value.

That had a lot of residents hopping mad, including some who said they would lose their homes to foreclosure if the tax was imposed.

About 50 people showed up for the public hearing at the Community Center July 9 to express their frustration.

The CVSD board sat in the hot humidity of the hearing room for more than an hour, but board members kept their cool as speaker after speaker rose to attack their competence and integrity.

“People who live in Camp Verde are living right on the edge,” district resident Jim Ash told the board. “If this [tax levy of $6.09 per $100 in assessed value], goes through, houses won’t sell. Nobody will want to live here. We need a different approach on this.”

The budget adopted by the board arrived shortly before the meeting and was made known to the public for the first time during the hearing. Many in the audience left the hearing once the actual budget became known.

Those who stayed wondered why the board waited so long to announce the good news.

CVSD Board Chairman Greg Freeman explained that the reason for publishing a worst-case scenario budget was due to uncertainty about the actual cost to the district of fixing problems that arose in the last year with the sewer line expansion and wastewater treatment plant construction.“We waited as long as we could to get a handle on those costs,” Board Member Rob Witt said.